Privacy

Your privacy is of great importance to Cumbria County Council. We are committed to protecting your privacy online and will treat any personal information, which could identify you - such as your name, house or email address - in accordance with the provisions of the Data Protection Act of 1998.

We will not sell, trade or rent your information to other third parties, and we will not collect any personal information without your knowledge.

But any information or feedback you make within this website will not be regarded as confidential and we will be free to reproduce, use, disclose or distribute the response to others without limitation. You agree that Cumbria County Council shall be free to use any ideas or information in your response for any purpose.

Information communicated via the Internet could be detected by third parties and any information you send to us is at your own risk. We use cookies only for identifying returning users, we will not collect any information about you except that specifically identified below. This privacy policy only covers the Website at www.cumbria.gov.uk links within this site to other websites are not covered by this policy.

Where visitors may submit information via forms etc, in doing so they are deemed to have consented to the collection, processing and storage of that information. Information submitted will be stored by the webmaster as an e-mail message and used to process any requests, it will be retained for a reasonable period. Where a business transaction is then enacted commercial records may be retained for up to seven years.

The County Council cannot be held responsible for any acts of impersonation and will assume all information submitted is genuine unless there is reason to doubt its authenticity as no authentication of visitors is provided on this site. Should you suspect that a false entry has been made using your identity please advise the Council and appropriate corrective action will be considered.

As any Website is potentially available in many countries it is possible that information submitted to this site will be transmitted via servers and networks that are outside the UK. In submitting information to this site the act of clicking on the submit button is taken as explicit consent to use of the information as described in this statement.

The processing of information collected via this site is not registered under the Data Protection Act, however the principles of fair processing will be applied and should you have any concern regarding collection, processing, storage or disclosure of information submitted via this Website please contact Cumbria County Council.

National Fraud Initiative

This authority is required by law to protect the public funds it administers. It may share information provided to it with other bodies responsible for auditing or administering public funds, in order to prevent and detect fraud.

The Audit Commission appoints the auditor to audit the accounts of this authority. It is also responsible for carrying out data matching exercises.

Data matching involves comparing computer records held by one body against other computer records held by the same or another body. This is usually personal information. Computerised data matching allows potentially fraudulent claims and payments to be identified. Where a match is found it indicates that there is an inconsistency which requires further investigation.

No assumption can be made as to whether there is fraud, error or other explanation until an investigation is carried out.

The Audit Commission currently requires us to participate in a data matching exercise to assist in the prevention and detection of fraud. We are required to provide particular sets of data to the Audit Commission for matching for each exercise, and these are set out in the Audit Commissionís guidance, which can be found at www.audit-commission.gov.uk/nfi

The use of data by the Audit Commission in a data matching exercise is carried out with statutory authority under its powers in Part 2A of the Audit Commission Act 1998. It does not require the consent of the individuals concerned under the Data Protection Act 1998.

Depending on the original purpose for which is was obtained and the use to which it is to be put, information may be shared with a variety of services, examples include Housing sharing with Health or Housing Benefits sharing with the DSS. It may also be shared, where necessary, with other organisations that provide services on our behalf, e.g. contractors working for the Council.

In all of these examples the information provided is only the minimum necessary, to enable them to provide services to you.

Personal information about you may also be provided to Government departments, where we are required to do so by law, or to other local councils. An example would be when you have moved from one Councils area to another, and the new Council requires confirmation of the services you were receiving.

Information about you may also be provided for statistical research. This will not include your name and address unless you have given us permission to provide the information.